THE UNKNOWN HANDS (EPISODE THIRTY)

STORY SERIES

…My lips could not stop. I had never felt so humiliated. I spoke with a much agitated countenance, yet, all my words were more than a mere fable in the ears of those listening.

"No thief would ever own up", a woman argued.

"That you’ve not entered the room is no excuse. Thieves too are no fools. Anything could have happened in the night when everyone was asleep", said yet, another.

I was fired from all direction and I realized that I have outlived my usefulness in that community. I remembered how true it was that anyone who tarries too long where he is easing himself will be met by various types of flies. I knew the time was up for me to leave. When the head of the family tell his guest that all that is remaining in his house hold is only a seed of yam, he is indirectly telling the guest to leave. I picked up my cutlass in tears and went to my host to inform him that I was leaving. Considering his response, I could see that he too had taken me for hardened rouge. He simply nodded approval and then threw a "just-get-out-of-here" glance at me. Nothing was more shameful as I watched the villagers all looking accusingly at me as I was departing and saying all sort of things. I was praying silently that even in my absence, the truth should reveal itself and that the people should, through my own story, learn never again to accuse their fellowman falsely.

My tears were ceaseless as I went. There was nothing to console me as I recounted all my misfortune one after another. I could not understand why trouble should make me its perpetual friend. I had come across people whose journeys in life were all stories of smooth sailing and who even laughed when they heard all I was passing through. I couldn’t take any offence at their laughter, for; I realized that some suffering could provoke laughter in others. Only the sufferer feels where it pinches. Besides, a situation that surpassed weeping is better laughed off.

I had suddenly noticed someone rushing towards me, Aduke from all indications had cried her eyes out as the traces of tears were still noticeable in her face. We both sat down on the shrub at one side of the path and wept together again.

"I cannot steal your parents’ money" I said when I had managed to find my voice.

I had begun to sweat by all the names of all the gods and goddesses I knew when she told me to forget it, that there was no way she could doubt my honesty and innocence in the whole episode. Her only plea was that I should return with her to meet her father again. I politely declined that suggestion, stressing that it was impossible under that circumstance for me to return. How would I carry my face in the compound, moreso when the money in question had not yet been found? I told Aduke plainly that the only thing she could bail me out was for the money to be found. And not only that, it should be found in a way I would be proved totally innocent.

When Aduke discovered that nothing would make me change my mind, she vowed to follow me to wherever I was going. I found that suggestion completely unacceptable. In my short stay with them, I had seen how useful she was to her mother, assisting her in nearly all the house chores, and running errands. Apparently, if I took her away like that, I would be doing a lot of disservice to her parents and it would still amount to proving me a wicked fellow and an ingrate. Besides, Aduke was still a young girl whose decision should not be taken as accurate. Even though I realized how much I needed her around me. I realized she was still a young and that what she actually needed at that point in time was counseling and not seduction or abduction. I remembered that I had been overcome by an unreasonable passion at our first meeting but having stayed with them that while, I had begun to see her as my own blood sister, especially at the way her parents had taken me as their own child. As a result, I was able to restrain myself in the thought that an adult who lures a young child into doing what is wrong cannot be absolved from blame. I persuaded her to go back and be the good girl that she was. I also assured her that I would come back for her at a later date. That assurance alone, I could see changed her composure as she came back alive again bright and radiant as ever.

As we parted ways later, the next thought that occupied my mind was where to go. The little moment of joy I had shared in Ogodo had changed almost all my earlier aspiration about life, and the idea of going to Lantoro forest had gradually been dying away from my mind. With my new predicament, I was confused on what to do. I was already getting old but at my age, I had not gotten a place to settle and live like a normal human being. And the thoughts of returning to Orija, was one I was never ready to entertain. Did it mean I was going to wander about all my life as a mere bird of passage? How would I even prove my innocence in all the tribulations I had been passing through? If accusation becomes too rife against a man, he becomes an object of suspicion anywhere he goes no matter how innocent he could be. In fact he would need divine grace to convince anyone that he has no cockroach in his cupboard…to be continued on Tuesday.

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